For Immediate Release:
May 12, 2022
Contact:
Brooke Rossi 202-483-7382
Gaithersburg, Md. – Armed with signs proclaiming, “Only Bullies Ride Bulls,” a coalition of PETA supporters will rally outside the Montgomery County Fairgrounds on Saturday to protest the abuse of animals at the Pro Rodeo event that’s returning to the county after an absence of almost three decades. Rodeo participants have been videotaped choking and twisting calves’ necks while slamming them onto the ground, injecting bulls with steroids to induce an aggressive response to harassment, using sharp spurs to make horses buck, and zapping horses and cows with electric “hot shots” so that the animals charge in a panic out of the chute.
When: Saturday, May 14, 1 p.m.
Where: Montgomery County Fairgrounds, 500 Perry Pkwy., Gaithersburg
“Animals exploited for cheap thrills in rodeo events have sustained broken bones, punctured lungs, and internal bleeding from being violently jerked around the arena,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “This is not the 1800s when people didn’t know much better. PETA is urging everyone to steer clear of this vile spectacle and calling on county officials to make this exhibition of cruelty the last such shameful event to be held there.”
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
